Compelled to Conform: When Tribal Ties Trump Truth

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Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

Compelled to Conform: When Tribal Ties Trump Truth
What we make of the facts depends on how they relate to our group.

President Trump’s denial regarding his election loss was predictable and tedious. More interesting and consequential, though, was the reaction of others choosing to go along with him in the face of overwhelming evidence.

It’s likely that many of these people did so because they did not actually know or believe the truth; some no doubt were afraid of Trump himself—his cruelty and vindictiveness. But many of those who have remained silent or spoke of massive election fraud have surely recognized the fact of his defeat but were loath to voice the truth out of sheer conformity—yielding to group pressure....

Now, the individual impulse to recognize the facts and speak the truth is compelling, in part because doing so tends to result in better survival consequences. Our brain is a prediction machine, and predictions tend to improve with better input data. From the point of view of evolution, the ability of an individual actor to diagnose correctly the situation and voice that diagnosis forcefully increases both the individual’s and the group’s survival advantage, because a correct diagnosis is more likely to beget the correct response....

By stirring incessant buzz and conflict, Trump has made his brand of Republican Party politics highly accessible and fit, and hence highly salient for his voters; little wonder so many of them opted for the warm shelter of group conformity over the cold, hard facts.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/insight-therapy/202011/compelled-conform-when-tribal-ties-trump-truth

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